Discovery means you send the other side questions and requests for information or items (like documents) in writing. The other side must respond to your question or request in writing.
PRINT EMAILYou use discovery to get information or evidence from the other side in a lawsuit that will help you make your case. In order to get the information you need, you must make a request using a specific procedure and written format, within a specific timeframe.
If you are representing yourself in your case, you can consider hiring a lawyer to help you with just this part of the case.
You use different types of discovery requests to get different kinds of information:
A Form Interrogatory is the easiest tool to use for discovery. It's a set of questions on a standard form. Common ones in most civil cases are:
To use a form interrogatory, you check any question you want the other side to answer that is relevant to your case.
This is useful to not only get general information about the other side, like home and employer address. An injured person can ask about the person's insurance coverage in an accident. You can also ask for information that supports what the other side claims in their Complaint or Answer.
You can use a Special Interrogatory (sometimes called a Specially Prepared Interrogatory) if you want to write the questions yourself. You use this if you want to ask questions that are specific to your case and are not included on the Form Interrogatory form.
See examples of what you might ask for with Special InterrogatoriesIn a credit card debt case where you are the defendant, you might ask the other side for dates of payments you missed so that you know when the plaintiff believes you broke the agreement.
In a car accident case where you are the plaintiff, you might ask the other side what speed they were traveling before the collision so you can know how fast the defendant will claim they was traveling at trial.
In a dog bite personal injury case where you are the plaintiff, you might ask the other side any times their dog has bitten another person so that you can know if the plaintiff knew their dog might bite.
You can use a template to create your own form for this type of request.
from the other side in your case, but you can’t use it to get information from third parties outside the case. To get information from third parties, you must use a subpoena.
A Request for Production (also known as a Demand for Inspection) asks the other side to produce and allow copying or inspection and measuring of a document or thing. The other side also provides a written response stating that all evidence was produced, or explaining what hasn't been produced and why.
Typically, if you requested a document, but the other side claims it doesn't exist, you can object to the judge if they try to introduce the document at trial.
Requests for Production help prevent any surprise evidence at trial.
See examples of what you might ask for using Request for ProductionIn a credit card debt case where you are the defendant, you might ask the other side to produce account statements for a specific period if you want to know for sure whether the other side could produce the account statements for trial, or you have reason to believe the statements contain an error.
In a car accident case you might ask the other side to produce any photographs they have of the car before the collision if you need evidence to show some of the damages happened before the collision.
In a dog bite personal injury case in which you are the defendant you might ask that the other side medical records for injuries from the dog bite if you want evidence of medical procedures and costs the plaintiff claims.
A Request for Admission asks the other side in your lawsuit to admit that a list of statements are true or that documents are authentic.
If the other side admits that a fact is true, you will not need to prove that fact at trial. If the other side admits that a document is genuine, you will not need to authenticate it at trial.
This makes trial faster and less expensive since your trial can focus only on the issues on which you and the other side disagree.
You can also use Request for Admission to get information that helps prove your case.
See examples of what you might ask for using Request for AdmissionIn a credit card debt case where you are the defendant, you might ask the other side to admit that you disputed a charge on a specific date if you need to show that you disputed an account statement.
In a car accident case where you are the plaintiff, you might ask the other side to admit they were traveling faster than the speed limit just before the accident.
In a dog bite personal injury case where you are the defendant you might ask the other side to admit they had a "Beware of dog" sign posted in their yard if you are trying to show that the plaintiff knew in advance they had a potentially dangerous dog.
If the other side refuses to admit that one or more of the facts are true, or documents authentic, you can use a form interrogatory (unlimited civil cases) or special interrogatory (limited civil cases) to ask them for information to support that.
The deadline for finishing discovery (the discovery cutoff) is 30 days before the original date set for a trial unless the parties have agreed or the court has ordered to extend the time. You need all the responses by this date. Since the other side has 30 days to respond, you typically need to send any requests at least several months before this date to make sure the response date falls before the cutoff date, and you have time to file a motion if there is a discovery dispute.
If you are the plaintiff, you can begin discovery 10 days after you serve the first papers in the case or anytime after the defendant files a response. If you are the defendant, you may begin discovery as soon as the case is filed.
If the other side doesn’t respond, you can file a motion with the court. The motions you file depends on the type of discovery request you made.
Your local Self-Help Center or law library may be able to help you with templates to prepare a motion.
You may file a motion asking the court to treat the requested admissions as true. In other words, the court will consider each of the admissions in the request to be true in court.
After communicating directly with the other side to request a response, you may file a motion asking the court to order the other side to respond.
After communicating directly with the other side to request further responses, you may file a motion asking the court to order the other side to provide further responses.
Be aware that there are deadlines that limit the amount of time you have to file each of these motions.
Discovery in civil cases
Choose any type of written discovery to see step-by-step instructions for using each one to get information for your case.